Club Med

To say that conservative Bermudians resist change may be something of an understatement. After all, it wasn't until after World War II that passenger cars were permitted to disturb the tranquility of the flower-filled island and to this day only residents are allowed to drive (visitors use taxis, buses or horse-drawn carriages).So it should have come as little surprise that the initial reaction of the island's legislature to a proposal by Club Med to establish a Bermuda beachhead was a resounding, ''No.

George Steinbrenner broke my mom's heart. It wasn't intentional. As a fan of the Baltimore Orioles — her son's favorite baseball team, too — she was part of the collateral damage of the Boss Man's reign. Steinbrenner, as you may have heard, didn't care much for losing. As he rebuilt the New York Yankees with a new business model that changed sports forever, Steinbrenner was never a coupon clipper. He basked in the glory of a fistful of dollars, and the talent it would bring.

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique - Guests were given an extra-warm welcome by tourism officials at the airport Friday and Saturday in an effort to erase the impact of an incident in which workers held resort guests hostage. The Club Med resort in the town of Sainte-Anne reopened its doors Friday, a month after workers went on strike and refused to allow the 373 guests to leave the grounds. Police eventually stormed the hotel and ended the standoff with no significant injuries.

The worst thing that was required from the last playoff perfect team on Sunday was that they were forced to play perfect. The Orlando Magic were so far behind that a late comeback needed to be error-free, every shot had to fall and every stop defended. Even the beer vendor couldn't spill a drop. You can perhaps pull off that against lesser teams, but not against the Boston Celtics, who wrote the handbook on how to win titles. The fact is, the Magic had to mount a furious, fourth-quarter rally just to make their 92-88 loss seem respectable in the opening game of the Eastern Conference Finals at Amway Arena.

A ski teacher and two of his supervisors at a Club Med resort in the French Alps were convicted and fined Wednesday in connection with the death of a skier in an avalanche last year. The instructor, Olivier Leborgne, was fined $525 and given a one-month suspended prison sentence for involuntary homicide and teaching skiing without a license. He was leader of a party of six that encountered an avalanche while skiing off the regular trials last January at the Val d'Isere ski resort. A skier was killed, and another was injured.

An impoverished island may not be the best place to live, but Fidel Castro and Club Med want to make Cuba a great place to visit. Eager for foreign tourists and their money, Castro has signed a deal with the resort chain Club Mediterranee to open a beach-side getaway next winter 86 miles east of Havana. Cuba will pay to build the resort, and Club Med will pay to run it. Club Med gets the profits but will pay the Cuban government an unspecified rent, Marc Siles, Club Med's overseas director, said Monday.

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique - A Club Med resort where striking workers held 373 tourists hostage will close until a labor dispute is resolved, the Paris-based resort chain said Monday. Police in riot gear raided the resort on the Caribbean island of Martinique on Sunday night to free the guests. Unions claimed four employees were injured during the raid.

On an impulse, Rick Bergman calls his travel agent and tells her that he wants to get out of LA. Someplace where the phone calls can't catch up with him. Someplace where he can leave his squalling, 60-hour-a-week brat of a business behind. Someplace where he can pamper himself for a change -- just soak in the warm breezes and saltwater and the blissful release of forgetting it all.The travel agent says she has just the ticket, and three days later Bergman is sitting in the bar at a Club Med.Ah, Club Med. Where the real world ends and Fantasy Island begins.

''Wanted: Old married couples, 30- and 40-something parents with kids (any age), and out-of-shape middle-agers, to frequent vacation resorts formerly filled by bronzed, wanton singles.''Club Med marketing executives haven't exactly worded advertisements this way, but they might as well. After four decades of catering to its promiscuous reputation, Club Med finds itself doing the popular thing today - looking for family values.Club Mediterranee, born in Paris in 1950, and its American sister, Club Med, begun in New York in 1968, still offer all-inclusive vacations with an emphasis on relaxation in beautiful places.

Max eluded the dangers of the street by moving in with friends after his mother entered a homeless shelter early this year. But when he got into trouble, he couldn't escape the meanness of lockup.The lanky, soft-spoken 14-year-old found life at the Orlando Regional Juvenile Detention Center more dangerous than being on the street.In March, Max and another young offender were initiated by fellow inmates - into ''Club Med.''During the nearly six-hour ordeal, Max and 15-year-old Carl - who are not being identified because of their age - were slugged until they were bloody, kicked in the head and ribs, slammed against walls and forced to fight each other.

Wide receiver Jarett Dillard, drafted by the Jaguars because he was noted for having good hands, has had trouble catching the ball during training camp. But Dillard thinks it's only a matter of time before he gets in a groove. He said he's been concentrating on getting open and running routes instead of thinking about catching the ball. "Yeah, it's frustrating, but I'm not going to let it get me down," Dillard said. He said that when he had drops in camp or in pregame warm-ups in college, he still tended to play well in the games.

Think of it as camp for grown-ups. That's the best way to assess Club Med Turkoise, one of the few remaining adults-only resorts in the Club Mediterranee family. At the all-inclusive resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies, I saw joyful men and women belly-flopping on an outdoor trampoline. They tumbled like human dominoes during the late-night limbo contest. A couple of giggling 40-year-olds sneaked away from the bar and tiptoed toward the beach to make out. For my part, I embarked on a mission of consumption.

Down on the sponge docks, salty air punctuates the busy marketplace as tourists weave in and out of shops filled with stacks of jagged-edged natural sponges, religious icons and kitschy souvenirs. Loaded with bags of mementos, they step inside bakeries to sample honey-soaked baklava and other Greek pastries. Later, guided by travel books, they dine on gyros, souvlaki and moussaka in famous eateries such as Louis Pappas or smaller local favorites. This is what you do in Tarpon Springs, a town about 15 minutes north of Clearwater.

To find Tippy's, a beachside bistro on the string-bean-shaped island of Eleuthera, zigzag across a minefield of potholes called Queen's Highway, loop past the eerie remains of an abandoned Club Med, and then ask the guy standing in the road for directions. He may very well be David Barlyn, the bistro's gregarious owner. Don't let his T-shirt and flip-flops fool you. Or, for that matter, the rickety shack with wooden benches. This is not some down-at-the-heels fish fry, but the epicenter of the island's emerging social whirl.

Founding father Benjamin Franklin always enjoyed a good party, but here's one that the celebrated raconteur will miss: his 300th birthday blowout in Philadelphia. No matter. An impersonator will stand in. The life of the 18th-century statesman, inventor and writer, born Jan. 17, 1706, is being celebrated this year and next with exhibits, performances, tours and more in the City of Brotherly Love and surrounding sites. "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World," which runs through April 30 at the National Constitution Center on Independence Mall, combines hundreds of artifacts from Franklin's life with video animations and interactive displays.

Call it "Club 35." It's one "organization" in the NFL that nobody wants to join even though it only exists for one week a year. At the midway mark of the season, no other record matches the anxiety caused by having won three games and lost five. When you're 3-5, you are on the tight rope without a net. Win, and at 4-5 you are telling yourself that you are right in the playoff mix, especially if you happen to be in the parity-infested NFC. Lose, and at 3-6 you are staring into the abyss.

Fun family vacation. Like ''amicable divorce'' and ''reasonable attorneys' fees,'' it can be an oxymoron, especially if you have young children. After one hectic vacation last year, which featured too much driving and too little rest, we decided to do it differently this year. We decided to do Club Med. Or rather, let Club Med do us.From the time we left our car in a remote parking lot at the resort and took a golf cart to our room, we didn't see any gas stations or golden arches. We didn't buy any groceries, cook any meals, sweep any floors or empty any diaper pails.

I can thank - or blame - Club Med for the quick course in anatomy it gave my daughter that sun-washed day in 1984.Michelle was 10, and we were doing a dad/daughter cruise around the Caribbean. Dad had the bright idea, on Martinique, to taxi over to Club Med. Michelle tagged along not knowing Club Med from club soda.To make a long and embarrassing story short, Dad took Michelle around one bend thinking it was the tennis courts. It was not. It was the nude beach.Men were naked. Women were naked.

PORT ST. LUCIE - In the cavernous dining room, two siblings -- he in his early teens, she a smidge younger than that -- chat animatedly over breakfast. Eventually they rise to leave, pausing momentarily in front of a nearby table occupied by three adults. "We're gonna go water-ski," says the boy. One woman, presumably their mother, nods silently over her coffee, and the kids vanish. Welcome to Club Med Sandpiper, where families can play together, or nowhere near each other, or a little bit of both.

HOLLYWOOD -- If you live in Los Angeles -- or if you watch enough TV -- you know somebody like Michael Sloane. Sloane is a Hollywood archetype: the wannabe screenwriter, the guy you see at Starbucks, hunched over his laptop, nursing a no-foam latte, working on a scene for a high-tech thriller with great parts for Matt and Ben that's going to finally put him on the map. To make ends meet, they usually work a dreary day job they don't like to talk about....